as republicans have been trying to do since 2005 when we passed the deficit reduction act. >> let me jump to that, because part of the intriguing thing here is the fact that congressman cole, he is doing something that the president said, that post election news conference and that is, you know, extend the tax cut for everyone, but the wealthy, and then, you know, after you get that done, and i don't know if you would be going along with that, but nevertheless, you know, go ahead, talk about this long-term deal that would involve possible cuts as i think you're getting at, you know, cuts to programs like medicare. is that something we could see taking shape here? >> you're talking about getting rid of redundancies. great example, 342 economic development programs that are in the federal government system. let's start cleaning up these redundancies. let's do some of these across the board cuts in discretionary spending. let's make certain that medicare and social security, which are trust funds, not entitlements, they're trust funds, that they meet their obligation to our seniors and near seniors.
